Emergency Postcoital Contraception

Emergency postcoital contraception may be defined as the use of a drug or device to prevent pregnancy after intercourse. Unwanted pregnancy is common; worldwide, about 50 million pregnancies are terminated each year. 1 It has been calculated that each year the widespread use of emergency contraception in the United States could prevent over 1 million abortions and 2 million unintended pregnancies that end in childbirth. 2 A variety of different methods of emergency contraception are available (Table 1). The first to be described was high-dose estrogen, although currently the most widely used is a combination of estrogen and progestin. Recent interest in . . .